At the invitation of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) prepared on 10 January 2003 a memorandum on genetic use restriction technologies (GURTs). UPOVs comments are limited to the effect of GURTs on the sharing of benefits arising out of new plant varieties in comparison to the protection provided by the UPOV Convention and do not refer to other possible effects of GURTs. See http://www.upov.int/en/news/index.html (available in English, French, German and Spanish) or contact [email protected] for more information.

02/02/2003